Apparently, Canadians like to use of technology to manage their personal relationships. So much so they tend not to worry about family due to technology advances helping to keep people connected. This is the finding of a report published this week by Rogers (client).

The report focuses on how technology users connect to family and friends and includes a survey that 58 per cent of Canadians cannot imagine life without the modern conveniences of texting, email and social networking, while 39 per cent feel that staying connected with loved ones is equally as important as eating and sleeping.

It may not surprise you to know that women are better communicators than men, but it’s interesting that this trend holds true online too. Here’s an infographic summarizing the study’s findings:

Foursquare, the location-based social networking service, is targeting brands and local businesses by revamping its business pages; this step will help it face formidable competition from Facebook Places.

The New York-based social networking company, which launched in 2009, was a pioneer in location-based “checking-in” to receive rewards and deals, but lately it seems to have lost momentum, partly because of the Facebook location initative.

The idea is to make Foursquare a whole lot easier for businesses to understand and use. The company has launched new Foursquare for Business pages which provide separate guidance for brands and venue owners. There is a step-by-step “walk-through” guide for businesses to show how they can claim check-in venues.

The business pages explain the company’s merchant platform and how venue owners can run and track campaigns. It gives guidance on creating pages and using the badges-rewards system to drive consumer engagement.

The Foursquare for Business pages also include examples of successful brands’ pages, including Louis Vuitton, Red Bull and Havaianas.

As part of the UK Government’s on-going ‘Democracy UK’ Facebook page, it’s set up a ‘Spending Challenge Channel’ on the social networking site, which will allow users to submit and vote on suggestions about how spending cuts should be made. Here Prime Minister David Cameron and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have a chat about the project.

It wasn’t long ago that many of us were saying Ya-who? But over the past few days, the one-time giant has started to rear its head again, pushing more toward being a content-focused brand. Tony C from the Yahoo! team is filling us in on a new feature for users of Yahoo! Mail. Facebook has been pretty deeply integrated into Yahoo! Mail since this past December, with features like importing and mailing your Facebook friends and cross posting your Facebook status into Yahoo!

A boy of 15 who fatally stabbed one of his former friends over a “loss of face” after they traded insults on Facebook was convicted of murder yesterday. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, knifed Salum Kombo, 18, in the chest after a petty dispute on the website, the Old Bailey was told. Mr Kombo bled to death in Bromley-by-Bow, east London, last December. His killer was arrested that day and admitted the stabbing but claimed he acted in self-defence.

Once again, Facebook has changed its privacy settings. Like the last time this happened, Wednesday’s improvements are still a mixed bag, but a better one: they are generally easier to use but not as simple as they could be. There are a couple of curve balls thrown in, too. In this screenshot tour, we’ll show you what’s new–and what to watch out for.

When you get home tonight, you might find a pile of direct mail on the kitchen counter. The phone may ring with a local police group seeking a donation. E-mails from L.L. Bean or Hilton Hotels could fill your inbox. If you’ve visited a Lexus dealer about that special promotion you got in the mail, computers will crunch your financial profile to see if you’re worthy of a loan. All this is driven by data, the virtual bread crumbs you leave behind as you fill out warranty cards, subscribe to magazines, or buy on credit. And you’re cool with that. So why do people freak out about social networks using data the same way?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckberberg has had a tough few weeks. At a Facebook developer’s conference on April 21, he announced some changes to Facebook’s privacy policy, including the “Instant Personalization” program that “connects” Facebook members’ information on some third-party sites, including Yelp and Pandora. He also announced that, going forward, application developers would be able to hang on to user information indefinitely, rather than having to purge the information from their servers daily.

The ability to target your Facebook status updates to specific audiences is an often-overlooked feature of the social networking service. I use it often to reduce the noise and increase the signal for my Facebook friends. With this feature, I can send marketing-related content to only those people who are likely to find that of value.